More than 2,200 ants were found in Zhang Kequn’s luggage at Nairobi airport, with baggage destined for China
A Chinese national has been sentenced to a year in prison and fined by a Nairobi court for attempting to smuggle thousands of ants out of Kenya, a lucrative trade in east Africa that was exposed last year.
The insects are mostly destined for China, the US and Europe, where they become pets and can be worth about $100 each.
Continue reading...Conservationists say move could push species closer to extinction and clearer environmental rules are needed instead
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Conservationists and scientists have warned a mining lobby proposal to use artificial intelligence to speed up national environmental approvals could generate “robodebt-style” failures, putting threatened species at further risk.
The Minerals Council of Australia has asked the government to spend $13m to trial the use of AI to help companies prepare applications and help the federal government make decisions.
Continue reading...Leaders say automated mowers’ blades threaten nocturnal animals as studies highlight risks to wildlife
German mayors have called for a nationwide ban on night-time use of robot lawnmowers to protect hedgehogs and other small nocturnal animals from being killed or maimed in the dark.
Recent studies have highlighted the threat lawnmower blades pose to wildlife active between dusk and dawn, prompting growing calls for regulation. Hedgehogs also tend to curl into a ball when threatened rather than running away, making them harder for a robot mower’s sensors to detect.
Continue reading...Fifty ‘founder’ bilbies were released in fenced breeding area in 2019 with the aim of establishing first wild population there in a century
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Efforts to reintroduce bilbies in the far south-west of New South Wales are showing signs of success, with numbers climbing to almost 2,000, seven years after the first breeding trial at Mallee Cliffs national park.
Fifty “founder” bilbies, including 30 from Thistle Island off the coast of South Australia, were released in a fenced breeding area in 2019 with the aim of establishing a wild population in the Mallee Cliffs habitat for the first time in a century.
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Continue reading...Critics say exemption for fossil fuels exploits White House’s ‘self-made gas crisis’, and could doom the rare Rice’s whale
A US government panel on Tuesday exempted oil and gas drilling in the Gulf of Mexico from the Endangered Species Act (ESA), a move which critics say could doom a rare whale species and harm other marine life.
The Endangered Species Committee – which had not convened in more than three decades – voted to approve the request for the ESA exemption at the request of the defense secretary, Pete Hegseth.
Continue reading...National Trust says one year after reintroduction they are enriching habitats and may be having kits this summer
They were released this time last year with fanfare, much hope and also, perhaps, a little trepidation.
Twelve months on, there have been ups and downs for the first beavers to be (officially) reintroduced into the wild in England since the semiaquatic mammals were hunted to extinction 400 years ago.
Continue reading...Conservationists celebrate second twin birth just two months after another found in Virunga national park
A second set of mountain gorilla twins has been born in Virunga national park in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), in what conservationists are celebrating as an “extraordinary” event for the endangered primates.
Just two months after tiny twin mountain gorillas were discovered by rangers in the Virunga massif, in eastern DRC, another rare twin birth has been found by park wardens. This time, an infant male and female have been spotted in the Baraka family, a troop of 19 mountain gorillas that roam the region’s high-altitude rainforests.
Continue reading...The insects covered its largest area since 2018, despite threats from habitat loss, climate crisis and pesticides
The population of monarch butterflies in Mexico increased 64% this winter, compared with the same period in 2025, offering a glimmer of hope for an insect considered at risk of extinction.
The figures, released this week by the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) Mexico, showed that the area occupied by monarchs expanded to 2.93 hectares (7.24 acres) of forest from 1.79 hectares (4.42 acres) the previous winter, the largest coverage since 2018.
Continue reading...Conservationists hope Murray Watt’s review of national marine parks will ‘right the wrongs’ of previous downgrade of protection
The federal environment minister, Murray Watt, has pledged to put an extra half a million square kilometres of Australia’s ocean out of reach of fishers and drillers in a step conservationists hope will “right the wrongs” of an Abbott-era downgrade of marine protection.
Watt confirmed last year Australia would put 30% of its ocean estate under a high level of protection that bans extractive industries as part of an international agreement to protect 30% of the planet’s oceans.
Continue reading...Self-styled ‘punk’ beer company bought land in 2020, pledging to plant Scotland’s ‘biggest ever forest’
The self-styled “punk” beer company BrewDog sold its Highland estate for a knockdown price after abandoning its efforts to plant Scotland’s “biggest ever forest” there.
BrewDog’s co-founder James Watt claimed its Lost Forest project at Kinrara in the Cairngorms national park would cover a “staggering area” and capture tens of millions of tonnes of CO2 during its lifetime.
Continue reading...Lower house votes in favour of polarising law after rapid increase in population and attack on grazing farm animals
Wolf hunting will be allowed in Germany under legislation passed by the lower house of parliament in response to a rapidly growing population and a sharp rise in attacks on livestock.
The return and growth of the wolf population in the last three decades has emerged as a wedge issue in Germany, the land of the Brothers Grimm who popularised the spectre of the Big Bad Wolf.
Continue reading...Subspecies driven to extinction by hungry whalers returns after ‘back breeding’ programme using partial descendants
Giant tortoises, the life-giving engineers of remote small island ecosystems, are plodding over the Galápagos island of Floreana for the first time in more than 180 years.
The Floreana giant tortoise (Chelonoidis niger niger), a subspecies of the giant tortoise once found across the Galápagos, was driven to extinction in the 1840s by whalers who removed thousands from the volcanic island to provide a living larder during their hunting voyages.
Continue reading...Government plans legislation giving landowners and tenants rights to cull deer to protect crops and property
It will be much easier to shoot deer in England under government plans that aim to curb the damage the animals are doing to the country’s woodlands.
Emma Reynolds, the environment secretary, plans to bring forward new legislation to give landowners and tenants legal rights to shoot deer to protect crops and property.
Continue reading...Alarming shift since 2010 means planet’s three main rainforest regions now contribute to climate breakdown
Africa’s forests have turned from a carbon sink into a carbon source, according to research that underscores the need for urgent action to save the world’s great natural climate stabilisers.
The alarming shift, which has happened since 2010, means all of the planet’s three main rainforest regions – the South American Amazon, south-east Asia and Africa – have gone from being allies in the fight against climate breakdown to being part of the problem.
Continue reading...Environmental charity Fidra says 168 of 195 SSSIs it surveyed are contaminated with tiny pellets
Plastic nurdles have been found in 84% of important nature sites surveyed in the UK.
Nurdles are tiny pellets that the plastics industry uses to make larger products. They were found in 168 of 195 sites of special scientific interest (SSSIs), so named because of the rare wildlife they harbour. They are given extra protections in an effort to protect them from pollution.
Continue reading...Report commissioned by conservationists suggests some recorded new growth is misclassified or otherwise not equivalent to losses in species-heavy forests
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At face value, the amount of forest in Australia is officially increasing, and has been since 2008.
But if an old-growth tree is felled in a forest and seedlings grow elsewhere, is the official account ecologically sound? Not according to new analysis, which suggests that the way Australia calculates forest cover obfuscates the impacts of ongoing deforestation.
Continue reading...Analysis shows small hike in populations of insect-eating species after 2018 ruling, but full recovery may take decades
Insect-eating bird populations in France appear to be making a tentative recovery after a ban on bee-harming pesticides, according to the first study to examine how wildlife is returning in Europe.
Neonicotinoids are the world’s most common class of insecticides, widely used in agriculture and for flea control in pets. By 2022, four years after the European Union banned neonicotinoid use in fields, researchers observed that France’s population of insect-eating birds had increased by 2%-3%. These included blackbirds, blackcaps and chaffinches, which feed on insects as adults and as chicks.
Continue reading...Commons committee report challenges ‘lazy narrative’ used by ministers that scapegoats wildlife and the environment
Nature is not a blocker to housing growth, an inquiry by MPs has found, in direct conflict with claims made by ministers.
Toby Perkins, the Labour chair of the environmental audit committee, said nature was being scapegoated, and that rather than being a block to growth, it was necessary for building resilient towns and neighbourhoods.
Continue reading...Offsets were meant to be a last resort for mitigating environmental damage from development projects, but rapidly became the default
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The federal government risks repeating grievous mistakes made in NSW with its proposals to change the way developers compensate for damage to the environment, scientists and legal experts have warned.
As the Coalition tears itself apart again over climate, Labor’s plan to overhaul biodiversity offsets – and nature laws more broadly – has coasted under the radar with comparatively little scrutiny.
Continue reading...Well-preserved oak and maple boats used for transport and fishing to be displayed in Peterborough
After lying undisturbed in mud for more than 3,000 years, three rare bronze and iron age log boats have emerged to offer fresh insights into prehistoric life.
The boats were among nine discovered in a Cambridgeshire quarry 13 years ago – the largest group of prehistoric boats found in the same UK site. Most were well preserved, with one still able to float despite its long incarceration.
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